January 31, 2013

Bananas, Nessy, The Secret, and Social Theory

My usual
first day of class gambit is a framing
story or activity that lightens the mood, avoids jumping right into the
material and yet still provides a window into the key ideas for the class.

I’ve started my Sociological Theory courses with all sorts of
odd topics: “overdosing” on homeopathic medicine (which you cannot
actually overdose on, since it is little more than sugar tablets in fancy packaging), the numerology
of September 11th,
horoscopes, and the Lincoln/Kennedy conspiracy.
I also bought some dowsing rods (two metal bars that supposedly locate water or
whatever they are “attuned” to) for students to test their ability at finding
water.

One of my favorite bits is to
razz folks who made the claim that the banana is intelligently
designed (e.g., its peel indicates if it is underripe,
bad, or just right; it has a tab-style top; it fits in the hand; it is bent
toward the mouth, etc.). In the wild, a banana looks like the one pictured below, and the
banana we know has, of course, been modified through
humans’ understanding of the theory of natural selection. If I’m feeling really
game, I’ll bring a pineapple to class to see if their theory is testable on
other fruits.

All these gambits, with varying
degrees of success, work to make distinctions between chance, anecdotes, and
lay opinions on the one hand and scientific
theory on the other. Each story is geared toward illustrating the relationship
between facts (e.g., details about a banana) and theory (e.g., an explanation
for why bananas are shaped the way they are. It helps underscore the difference
between theory as an everyday phrase (as in “that’s just a theory”) and theory
as a part of scientific process (as in a repeatedly testable explanation for
real world phenomena).

Budding
sociologists can learn about this distinction from recent challenges to
scientific theory. We can look at the real world implications of embracing
non-scientific methods. For example, dowsing rods seem like a joke, but testable
theories take a more serious tone when they given a fancy name (e.g., ADE-651),
cost U.S. taxpayers and the Iraqi government up to $60,000
each, and are used in Iraq to
detect bombs despite the complete lack of science-based evidence that they are
effective (they never work better than random chance). According
to the BBC., these devices that
cannot discover suicide bombs are possibly a factor in the deaths of hundreds of
soldiers and civilians.

It is not just in Iraq. The U.S. military is now hiring acupuncturists for up to $90k/yr
despite the fact that research shows a trained acupuncturist is just as successful as a random person
poking a patient with toothpicks. (I’m in the wrong business. That’s $20k more
than the average sociology professor’s
salary!)
Acupuncture might have helped some people, but a collection of anecdotes is not
the same thing as data. Data is collected by testing theories. Remember a good
rule of thumb: If alternative medicine were scientifically provable, they’d
just call it medicine.

We also see anti-theory positions in education. Most of you have
probably heard of the famous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. High school teacher John Scopes was accused of violating
Tennessee’s Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach evolution at a public
school. But there are similar fights afoot today. In 2008, the Bayou
State passed the Louisiana Science Education Act, which cracks the door open
for anti-science and anti-climate change doctrine (read: non-science) to sneak
into school curricula, as it allows teachers to add supplemental materials to
their classes.

This extracurricular material includes a textbook claiming the Loch Ness Monster as evidence
against evolution. Enter 19-year-old, Rice University undergraduate, Zack
Kopplin, who is leading the charge for repealing this law, with no fewer than 77 Nobel Laureates signing his
petition, and the backing of the American Association for the Advancement of
the Sciences. Religious beliefs are not testable, and therefore, not theory. And kudos to an undergrad
making the case for science.

Now, let
us look at a ”theory” that we would talk about in a sociology course: The Law
of Attraction. I often talk about The Secret as one of my first
day gambits as well. It is a wildly popular book and film (the opening 20
minutes is available online), and is a glossy pitch for the ”LoA.”

The central tenet of LoA is that people
attract good and ill to themselves, by what they radiate out into the world. If
you believe good thoughts, you can bend the objective world to your bidding.
The film uses testimonials from people, one of whom says he learned ”The Secret”
and all of the bills coming in his mail turned into paychecks. One of the
charlatans in the film, Joe Vitale, claims that 2005 Hurricane Rita was
diverted because of all the positive vibes pumped out by his local radio
listeners.

It’s true
that Rita weakened on its way to Texas, where Vitale lived, but if he did divert it, he made it turn east to
Louisiana, worsening the devastation from Hurricane Katrina one month earlier.
The theory: subjective positive vibes affect the objective world. The evidence:
bills turning into checks and a hurricane changing its direction. (Maybe it is
fears of pseudo-scientists like this guy that made New Orleans’ City Council
back Kopplin’s petition as well!)

Here’s
where the sociology comes in: Not only does The
Secret prompt thinking about its lack of data and testability (which,
therefore, makes it a non-theory), the Law of Attraction also illustrates tensions
between agency and determinism, subjectivity and objectivity, and individual
and society, the
heart of much of our sociological theory. The LoA is a hyper-individualized perspective,
placing the blame for one’s past failings and future responsibilities on his or
her own shoulders alone.

This
perspective is antithetical to sociology in this fashion as well, as it ignores
deep, structural inequalities that students have learned prior to coming to my
theory class. Most students realize that big, social forces like racism and
sexism are often at work and that we, as individuals, don’t have easy control
over them. The secret of The Secret’s
battery of books and self-help lectures is that they blind readers from real
problems and inequalities.

One of our
greatest theorists, Robert Merton, called this the self-fulfilling
prophecy, making the more
sociological point that expectations shape outcomes but there are social limitations as well. Have you been
turned away from a job based on your skin color? The Secret would contend that you are to blame! Do you not make as
much money as your male colleagues? LoA would recommend having a more positive
outlook!

Such a
theory flies in the face of real scientific research on racism
in hiring practices and the
glass ceiling where the self-fulfilling
prophesy comes up against real barriers. Sociology seeks to uncover those
limits while LoA blames the victim. What is particularly disturbing is that an
influential African-American woman like Oprah Winfrey would offer such
full-throated endorsements of LoA on
her television show! The Secret also tells us that if you are
successful it is due to your own pure will, and if someone else is a failure it
is his fault for not having a positive attitude. Sociological theory and
testable evidence, by contrast, can assist in calls for social justice and
change.